In electrochemistry, activation of an electrode refers to a process that improves the electrochemical properties of a given electrode. For example, activation could affect the rate of electrochemical reaction. A possible method for such activation on carbon-based electrodes is an electrochemical one, where the process involves placing an electrode in a liquid medium at a selected potential as compared to the reference electrode. It has been reported that such a procedure both cleans the electrode surface and for various carbon-based materials introduces functional groups that may include carboxyl or quinone through faradic type reaction; those reactions that involve electron transfer from electrolyte to electrode.
Reported electrochemical activation procedures involve glassy carbon electrodes, pyrolytic carbon films, and screen-printed electrodes. The prior art describes the electrochemical activation (hereafter “activation”) process as applying a certain fixed potential to the working electrode for a fixed amount of time.